Android

Apple has rejected a game app that scores players on how high they can toss their smartphone in the air. The game, "Send Me To Heaven," launched this week and is available free for Android smartphones. IPhone users, however, will not be able to download the app. "Apple thought it was violating one of the rules for submission as it was encouraging behavior which could lead to a damage of iOS device," Petr Svarovsky, the game's developer, said in an email to The Times. PHOTOS: 10 tech projects getting a boost from Kickstarter "Send Me To Heaven," which Apple said was rejected for violating one of its App Store guidelines, describes itself as a "sports game" since it takes skill to throw and catch the device without breaking it. The app calculates how high you throw it using the device's accelerometer.

Russians have turned stealing money from Android smartphone users into an entire industry, according to a security app maker's investigation. Lookout Inc. studied how 10 Russian groups convince users to download what appears to be a legitimate mobile app. During the supposed download process, a computer code is run that sends a premium text message from the user's phone. Premium text messages result in an extra fee at the bottom of phone bills, typically about $3 to $18 in this case.

Four years after the app Where's My Droid started helping people find their lost Android smartphones, Google has finally introduced its own service to track down lost or stolen devices. Android Device Manager will let users go online to spot devices on a map or ring their phone at maximum level, regardless of the current setting. If the phone might be lost for good, phone owners can remotely erase all of the data on the device. The service will come “later this month” to devices running Android version 2.2 or above, Android security engineer Adrian Ludwig said in a blog post Friday.

Motorola's long-awaited Moto X smartphone was finally unveiled Thursday but the excitement quickly fizzled. The phone was considered a disappointment by some hard-core techies. And further hurting its launch, Motorola had to quickly alter its marketing strategy after coming under criticism for a campaign laced with sexual innuendo. Customization is a big selling point for the Moto X. Users can choose what colors they want for the front, back and parts of the phone. They can also decide on the phone's background wallpaper, choose to engrave the back and pick either 16 or 32 gigabytes of storage.

Google Now, the Web giant's proactive personal assistant, could soon be beefed up with local news. Currently, Google Now shows Android and Apple mobile device users "cards" with information they may want to know before they search for it. The cards display information such as a friends' birthdays, upcoming flights they might have, local weather or traffic to users' place of work. Google is now experimenting with a local news card that would show users stories that are geographically relevant to them, according to a report this week by online news site Quartz . PHOTOS: Google Street View from 22,000 feet “One thing we're testing right now is a very local hyper-local news card, which is really useful,” said Johanna Wright, vice president of search and assist at Google, according to Quartz.

“Almost Human” isn't just a futuristic cop drama, it's also about hope. That was the message the show's cast and producers brought to the stage Thursday during the Television Critics Assn. press tour. Set in Los Angeles 35 years in the future, “Almost Human” tells the story of a troubled police officer named John Kennex (Karl Urban), who is partnered with a human-like android named Dorian (Michael Ealy). “We're not presenting a dystopian vision of the future,” said Urban.

Microsoft announced Wednesday that subscribers to Office 365 will be able to use a new Office Mobile app on their Android phones. The new app is available immediately in the Google Play store. And it comes just a few weeks after Microsoft released a similar app for iPhone users who subscribe to Office 365. PHOTOS: Google Street View from 22,000 feet The Android app is free to download. But an Office 365 subscription costs $100 a year. For that fee, users can install Office apps on up to five devices such as PCs, Macs, and smartphones.

How can one more restaurant review app make your smartphone any smarter? While “To Yelp” has become a popular verb in some circles, Zagat is making a comeback bid with a slightly different approach. Monday the well-known guidebook company, owned by Google since 2011, released a revamped free app that incorporates both the expected restaurant review material with the addition of a roundup of blog posts from its various city editors. The app is available for both iOS and Android phones.

The tiny, two-inch-long digital TV receiver is cheaper than all of its rivals, and although it isn't quite as capable as the Apple TV or Roku 3 just yet, Google Chromecast has the potential to make a mark. At $35, Chromecast is nearly one third the price of the $99 Apple TV and it is cheaper than any of Roku's options. It can also be controlled by a variety of devices, including smartphones and tablets running Android and iOS operating systems as well as PC and Mac computers.

Security software makers McAfee and Norton recently added features to their Android apps designed to help users control who can interact with the sensitive information on their smartphones and tablets. The focus on privacy is aimed at drawing more consumers to pay $30 a year for the apps, which traditionally have been touted as protection against dangerous apps that the security industry calls malware . But Google, which spearheads development of the Android operating system, has said that malware is a mild threat.